


Before & After

by Angelscythe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimiashe Week (Fire Emblem), Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelscythe/pseuds/Angelscythe
Summary: When Ashe lost Lord Lonato, he got a help he would never believed he would receive. A few years later, he receive the occasion to give back what he had received...
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert
Kudos: 17





	Before & After

**Author's Note:**

> They don't know it but I kinda wrote this for the amazing @Qiliin on twitter. Please, please, please, go check their art if you don't know them already. They're so sweet and their art is at least as sweet as them!!!
> 
> Also, sorry for the english and the possible mistakes in that fic, I've dislexia and english isn't my first language.
> 
> Remember you are all awesome and precious!! You are loved and you matter!! I'm cheering up for you and any of your project you have!! Please, stay inside and hydrated!! Take care of yourself and those you love! Wash your hands!!!!! *blow you a non-contamined kiss*

There must be some mistake.

There must be some mistake!

That couldn’t be possible? Lonato would never… Lonato would never raise weapons against the Church.

No?

He would have said so to him otherwise, no?

They were pretty close. He even sent him to the Church of Seiros’ biggest institution. There must be some mistake. It wasn’t possible…

But then… how could he have ended up with his blood on his hands. The man who saved his life, the man who took him away from the street, who saved his family…

The blood on Lonato. On his hands.

On his hands…

He had killed him. He had killed the man who did so much for him. He couldn’t do anything else. He had to protect the citizens. The man, his second father, was becoming mad… Catherine said it was because of Christophe’s death and… he believed it wasn’t a good reason enough. He understood the man because he also had lost people very dear to his heart. He also had difficulties to pass through the sorrow, but when you were a Lord you couldn’t bring innocent citizens into this.

And…

It was so different from what he used to be when he held his hand through the streets while they were walking, when he took him in his lap to teach him stories…

The man he loved had disappeared.

And he didn’t understand why.

Ashe could hear the words around him. They were calling him, trying to pass through the veil of his sorrow, of the horror.

But he couldn’t react. He only saw what he had done. He only realized that… once again, his family will be orphan.

And it was his fault.

His fault…

Ashe could feel a hand in his hair, fingers sliding along his cheek with softness.

He didn’t remember a lot, being too much in shock.

Now, he realized he was in the infirmary. When did he leave the battlefield to arrive here, at Garreg Mach?

“Thank you, Mercedes…”

“It’s not exactly Mercedes,” a soft voice replied.

Ashe got a hiccup when he recognized the voice.

His Highness?!

He blushed.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry, Ashe. It’s a compliment to be taken for Mercedes. Unfortunately, it’s only me,” he laughed softly.

He sat next to him. Ashe blushed even more and slid on the side, not daring to allow their bodies to touch each other.

It would be so wrong.

“How did I end up here?” Ashe wondered with a weak and low voice.

Everything was still confuse in his head. And when he looked down, he noticed that his hands were clean. Suddenly, he wondered how many time had passed… What had happened? How could the reality disappear from his head… as if this whole fight against Lonato was just… a dream?

“I carried you,” Dimitri said.

Ashe blushed even more.

Could it be possible to be redder?

“I’m glad you look better. The professor and Mercedes were worry…”

“I need to apologize to them,” Ashe whispered.

“They understand. It has been a shaking experience for you.”

Dimitri got up and walked toward a table bending under the amount of cotton, bandage, disinfectant and tools looking like spat out the Hell itself. Even when the Magic was so easy of access, you couldn’t only count on it…

Ashe felt a bit calmer to have the Prince away from him.

He felt flattered for his attention… but he didn’t deserve it.

Especially after…

“Can you remove your top?”

“What?!” Ashe blushed even more.

So, he _could_ be redder!

Wait… Dimitri was the Prince. Shouldn’t he just… willingly comply?

He saw a soft smile on the royal face.

“Don’t worry, Ashe. Mercedes and Miss Casagranda just didn’t want to force you down to heal you, your wounds being minors, but now you’re feeling better, I rather prefer relieving them from…” How to say that without looking impolite. “Too much work?”

Ashe looked down.

Not because of his own pain and sorrow, though.

His fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, knowing exactly where he had been wounded. You could see it through the ripped off clothes, though…

“How many people can have been saved?”

“A lot. The Monastery is healing around thirty people but they also have send medical strength in Lonato’s domain, so they could take care of those needing it. We don’t have much death to lament on.”

“Except Lonato…” Ashe whispered, removing his hoodie.

It wasn’t as cold as Faerghus but the fresh air still make him shiver.

“I won’t lose much time,” Dimitri swore, noticing the chill.

He wasn’t made for healing but… he could do a little. He never expected everybody to do everything for him. Though he was more used to break everything when he tried to help. Let’s hope he wouldn’t break Ashe’s bones!!

“As for Lonato…”

Ashe was still red, his freckles looking like a constellation under this new color, as Dimitri’s approached his hand from him.

They were talking about his dear father and he was blushing over their Prince…

Perhaps it was a good thing his parents were all dead because they would be so ashamed of him.

“We hadn’t found more explanations. He had a letter on him… he wish to kill the Archbishop…”

“It is not normal. My fat… Lonato would have never… I don’t understand. And I…”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself, Ashe.”

Ashe shivered.

Was it because of the velvet voice or, perhaps, the alcohol entering his wound? He could only twitch to it.

“You did the right thing, you know? You protected our friends. You fought for what is good.”

“I killed my father… He saved us and, to thank him, I killed him. And now, who will take care of my family? I’m there and…”

“I will.”

“You?” Ashe hiccupped.

Dimitri nodded, pressing the imbibed gaze on another wound. Ashe flinched.

“My uncle is the one taking care of Fhirdiad and the Kingdom but I am still the one promised to the throne. If I ask him to accept your siblings in the Castle he wouldn’t refuse. We will take care of them,” he swore.

“Th… Thank you, your Highness, I… How…”

“You should call me ‘Dimitri’ instead of ‘your Highness’,” he invited with a smile, pressing the gaze against the wounds.

It really wasn’t much.

The first scars he would show as a Knight.

“But… I can’t.”

Dimitri smiled sadly.

He was used to it. He would always be ‘your Highness’. That won’t change anything for him. But if Ashe could be happier, with what he had offered or by calling him ‘your Highness’, fine.

He was ‘your Highness’ even for his friends. But if he could make them happy?

He liked to believe he succeeded in this. Even for Felix who always seemed to hate him. And for Ashe, please… he didn’t know him since long but Ashe’s heart was made of gold and he wanted him to be happy. Especially after having living a life of sorrow.

When he would have the throne, he would make sure Ashe could reach his dreams. He would make him Knight.

Happy.

From away… since he was the Prince…

The King to become.

This was Knighthood.

This was the path he had chosen but… it wasn’t like depicted in the books. He thought he was ready because of the studies and training within the Monastery, because of the situation already so dangerous and full of battle, blood… But this was War and it was way more than everything they had seen before.

When Dimitri had been killed, Ashe though his heart would shatter on the second…

But he stayed alive.

He stayed alive and the only thing he could do for the name of his Prince was to side with Rowe and try to protect the country.

Until the man was corrupted as well as the others…

He never stopped having faith in Dimitri. Even when he found back the man and he only showed madness, anger, bloodlust…

Nothing had changed.

Except the man.

But he never stopped trying to talk with him. He never stopped coming to cheer him up. Most of the time, it was him talking. Dimitri had tried to make him leave but Ashe still came because he didn’t like to let him alone.

And…

He hopped to find back his Highness.

He had nothing against Dimitri having changed during those five years if only he looked happy.

But he wasn’t happy.

Ashe just wanted to make him happy.

He had cooked so many cakes for him, brought him soup, cheese… He had tried everything.

The only time Dimitri accepted to talk with him wasn’t even… with him, in fact. He was just giving orders, asking for more blood to be spread on Fódlan.

But this wasn’t the Dimitri he knew.

This wasn’t the Dimitri he looked up. He still had his faith on him, though. Ashe knew the Prince was there… he just needed someone to hold out his hand to him.

Even if Dimitri himself wasn’t reaching him…

Ashe was always by his side. Always ready to help him…

He could have been the one who would have offered his back to Fleche’s dagger. He could have been the one who died for him. But instead, he was the one who entered the Church and walked to him. The Prince always stayed there… Dimitri had been shaken by joy when Dedue came back to them but he had lost his sparkle so quick after that. It was the only time Ashe could remember seeing joy within him. But the sadness… the sadness of having lost Rodrigue was still there.

It was like a cloud around him…

Everybody was stepping away from him because of that.

Someday, to be honest, Ashe believed he should do the same. Perhaps Dimitri was really a walking corpse. Perhaps he would die when he would get his revenge…

Vanish.

Like by magic…

But he was there today. He was… alive, or what was the closest of alive. And the sorrow was hugging him.

If this was the only thing.

Since they came back, they have fought. Often. But this battle was beyond the others. They all were in a poor state. Mercedes had done her best to heal them all but she hadn’t been able to approach Felix and Dimitri.

Both heavily wounded.

Both in grief.

While Sylvain could handle Felix and was taking care of him, not even Dedue or Byleth had managed to change the Prince’s mind, to approach him enough to heal him.

Someone had to take care of Dimitri.

Ashe would.

Because Dimitri, in return, had taken care of him so often. While he had to bring his family somewhere else once Cornelia took over the Realm, he had protected them when he needed it. He had talked with him so often though he was nothing…

He couldn’t abandon him…

Others were afraid. He was afraid too. He was terrorized.

But someone had to do it…

“Your Highness…”

“Get away!” the man roared.

Ashe put down the plate he had brought with him. Nothing fancy, a simple plate, with what one would need to be fully ready for the horror that would continue to eat the World.

“No,” Ashe said, firm.

“I said, get away!”

The second after, Ashe’s feet were dangling in the void. Without noticing it, they were moving, trying to find back the floor. But he wouldn’t be able and he knew why, held out in the air by a Living Corpse, a Mad Demon.

“I know you’re suffering,” Ashe said through his harsh breath. “You shouldn’t close your eyes to it,” he pursued.

He had the feeling the grip was closing around his throat. He watched the blue eye, the pupil so little, the color fading away.

“Dimitri!”

The Prince blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

“Ashe?”

“Please! Come back to yourself! You used to think and care about others!”

“Don’t you think I’m caring?”

“Caring for those already dead is good but what about those who lives and need you? Need a King! The citizens are afraid! Your friends are afraid! And if you pursue like that, you will lose more people! We can’t protect you if you keep showing us your back!”

Dimitri stared him.

“You shouldn’t close yourself to us. You should talk to us… Especially today. You lost your second father figure… You are wounded… You are lost…”

Ashe’s feet touched the floor.

Gently.

Ashe blinked, surprised.

“Like you…”

Ashe looked down to his own body. He had been perfectly healed by Mercedes…

“I’m doing okay,” he whispered. “The problem is y…”

“I mean, when Lonato… passed away,” Dimitri said.

His tone was still cold but his eye was on the tinier young man. Gentler.

“Yes,” Ashe replied.

He didn’t want to remind this to himself but on the other hand… it was true, it was the same situation.

“You were there for me that day… You protected my family. You kept protecting it even when you lost everything…”

“It was my last sane decision.”

“You can do more of them. It’s not over yet,” Ashe replied.

“I’m already dead…”

“You’re alive! And you’re insulting every people loving you, living and dead, by saying such things!”

Dimitri never got the luck, or the bad luck, to see Ashe angry. His traits closed, his eyes darting lightning… Ashe was always so nice, smiling, happy but there… Dimitri could be sincerely worry.

If he hadn’t already crossed death, Cornelia’s look.

Wait… no… Ashe did was more frightening than Cornelia…

He looked down.

Ashe sighed.

“Remove your coat and your armor plate,” he said.

“I can’t do it alone…”

Ashe frowned, looking him.

And suddenly understood what he meant.

“Well! Remove your coat at least. You can do it, right?”

Dimitri watched as said coat and then nodded. If a spark of life had come back in his eyes, his gesture still seemed off. As if it was difficult to be something else than a destroying machine. As if his head was still filled with parasite… noise?

Ashe pushed the food aside and took the pharmacy box he had brought with him. There wasn’t much and, as he saw the coat threw away with red spots in the white fur, he started to worry… did he even have brought enough?

He turned toward Dimitri and his hands moved toward him. He never felt tinier than next to him, his fingers searching the straps in the shoulders.

“I offer you my apologize to force this to you.”

“It’s fine, I’m used to do it.”

“I meant… having to endure my presence.”

“Your Hig… Dimitri,” Ashe corrected himself. “It’s not a burden to be by your side. Ask anyone…”

“Ask Felix…”

“Except Felix, obviously,” Ashe said with a light giggle, his hands going on the straps at the waist. “And yet… I’m sure he cares for you on his own ways. We’re not here because we are forced to. We are here because we _want_ to be there.”

Proof he couldn’t tell him? He saw so many people from Faeghus turn his back to him. He had hated that. He still hated it…

He saw so many fight occurs between people who used to love each other because they hadn’t the same opinion on the King… They weren’t much to have walked back toward Garreg Mach in the hope to see him even if he was supposed to be dead…

The hope for him to be back, the hope for a better World because he was in it.

Of course, they all had been disappointed. This wasn’t a Prince, this wasn’t a King… This was a Beast. But, as he removed layer of metal from the tall body, Ashe knew there was still someone under this carapace of hatred and self-disgust. He used to be at his place. His hands had done so many things he hated because he hadn’t the choice. He didn’t care if Dimitri’s tie was the poverty or the madness… He just knew he could be the hand to undo the knob and help him free himself.

Not because he was kind and wanted to help everybody.

Not because he owned it.

Because he loved him… A stupid and secret love… But… he wanted to see him happy, love himself again…

Holding the armor, he undid the last strap, freeing the thin and yet muscular, with an astonishing waistline, body. His cheeks were red as he put the chest plates on the floor in a metallic sound. Through his shyness, he forced himself to look at the body, the big crossed scar on the right pectoral, the scars snaking and licking his silk skin he would have loved just… brush with another idea in mind.

His looks was laying there too much, following the lines of the muscles moving under the slow breath of his Prince, his King. But at least, he could pretend it was to discern the wounds multiplying themselves on his body. Should he… ask him to remove the remaining of his armor?

To help him only!!!

Dimitri was like a Berserk. When you unleashed him on the battlefield, he fought. Becoming oblivious of the pain. And with an armor like his, and magic all around, wasn’t it possible that…

“I will remove the remain of your armor, if you allow it to me?”

“Do what you want, Ashe.” Dimitri closed his eyes. “I’m trusting you.”

Ashe couldn’t hide a little hiccup.

He was trusting… _him_?

To be fair, Dimitri was as surprised as him. Not because of his own words but because Ashe was there. Why? Why even bothering to be near him? Bother himself with his presence? Staying despite the harshness of his voice, of the coldness of his heart.

Ashe was there.

Ashe talked to him as if he was… a part of this World? As if his difference weren’t a reason to run away from him. He was in shock because everybody acted like this with him… They followed his orders but he wasn’t sure this was because they found it correct. Byleth did try to have him calming himself but they abandoned so fast.

Ashe was…

Dimitri had a shiver when he felt a touch on his hand as Ashe removed one of his gantlet.

Ashe was…

Holding out his hand to him?

He watched him, looked the freckles on his face, on his neck. Looked the round cheeks a bit red as he was kneeling in front of him, his fingers feverishly searching for the straps on the side of his legs armor. Focusing but shy and blushing at the same time…

He watched the agile fingers undoing the thin and robust thread to free his naked legs, revealing the numerous burns of the metal rubbing his skin. The wounds displaying themselves to the innocent view.

Dimitri closed his eyes when he felt the fingers brushes his thighs by inadvertence.

Though… he hoped it wasn’t by inadvertence…

As he opened again his eyes, watching the sole fool who would try to truly talk to him…

It was strange…

Seeing him, it was a spark in his mind. A tiny spark… juts like the moment when he found back Dedue. When he found back Byleth… When he saw Rodrigue fell instead of him. The only difference was that…

Dedue made him feel hope.

Byleth made him feel despair and self-hate.

Rodrigue made him feel sorrow.

Ashe was making him feel…

Joy.

A tiny bit of joy.

But it counted.

He watched him as he removed the last bit of metal from his body. He held out his hand, his fingers brushing his cheek. By hazard? No…

Ashe looked up at him, surprise. And saw the hand still holding out. As if it invited him to get up. The young Knight was perhaps… dreaming it? He moved his hand anyway and approached it to the Prince’s. Who did nothing but approaching it to his in return.

Their fingers brushed.

It was as if electricity was filling the room.

As if electricity was growing from their fingers, exploding all around. Just because they had touched each other.

It must have provoked something because, suddenly, there weren’t any sound around.

Only them, looking at each other. Soft green in deep blue.

“I… Uh… We… perhaps you should sit?” Ashe hiccupped.

Though he was now up, the strength of his Highness having helping him to stand, their hands were still holding and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with… that!?

Dimitri just nodded at him. And still held his hand as he moved toward the bench of the Church. They sat next to the first-aid kit.

“I will need this,” Ashe said with a little laugh.

He pointed out his hand with the other.

“Obviously,” Dimitri replied. “And thank you…” he said, letting go on his hand.

Sadly.

“It’s nothing,” the young boy said.

But it was so much more for Dimitri. More than Ashe could never imagine.

Ashe smiled to him and leaned toward him, taking alcohol on gaze to press it on the wounds. It was all flesh and blood but Dimitri didn’t flinch. He had felt worst. And he was looking at him, so who cared?

He did flinch, in fact.

When his fingers touched his skin accidentally.

He called those accidents.

Dearly.

“Do I hurt you?” Ashe asked when he saw him shiver, once against.

“No, you’re healing me.”

“You don’t have to hide anything to me,” Ashe smiled.

Bright as a Sunrise after a night full of War…

“I want to kiss you,” Dimitri said.

Ashe turned as red as peony.

“What?”

“You told me not to hide anything from you.”

He didn’t expect that!

“Y… Yes, I did,” Ashe whispered.

He really wanted to kiss him? This looked unreal… Like those stupid dreams he used to do when he was younger. And he kept doing…

But the pain of the whole day had been quite an indication. This was real.

How could it be possible… This? All of this… Possible?

A kiss from his Highness… from Dimitri?

It was inconceivable…

And yet…

Could he tell him?

Could he hope?

He felt a hand on his cheek. The fingers brushing. They were hard, callus… They had held a lance, a sword, for too long. They had ripped open so many things.

The hand of the one he loved secretly. The hand of the one he believed he only nourished a genuine crush… everybody was certainly doing the same. But Dimitri kept holding out his hand to him, talking to him, helping him, without asking anything in exchange and the feeling he started to get for him…

He replied to his hope, he replied to his dreams…

What would happen if he accepted this kiss?

A part of himself wanted to run away because he certainly didn’t deserved this; the other told him Dimitri was still struggling but he certainly was showing him more sanity than he did in those last months… He could help him.

And then…

His heart was a bit more selfish.

He wished to kiss him… for himself.

For them.

If this could happen.

If this had to be just once, then, very well…

“I want to kiss you too,” he said, looking down.

Dimitri leaned toward him. His hair brushed the freckles check and his lips approached his.

They pressed together.

From each side.

Softly.

Tenderly.

The World shattered around them as Ashe dared move his hand to lean it on Dimitri’s nape, as he felt the fingers caressing his cheeks. Everything bad in the World, every death, every sorrow, for a few seconds, disappeared, vanishing in bliss…


End file.
